The Winter’s Tale
2021: Erica Whyman

This is a film version of a performance by the Royal Shakespeare Company. It was filmed at the company’s theater in Stratford, without an audience. The flyer accompanying the DVD says that it was rehearsed under COVID protocols, and it makes internal reference to Shakespeare and pandemics (parting company, of course, with Shakespeare’s text to do so).

Like virtually all contemporary Royal Shakespeare productions, this is set in a mannered and exaggerated modern dress; the court of Sicilia is austere and looks like a fashion show; the scenes at Bohemia are set in a rather neutral location indicative of not much of anything. The famous bear that chases a character from the stage is represented by ominous manual gesticulations by a variety of people.

Like its older sibling, the Anthony Sher version from 1999 (Lough), it shows some very intriguing stagecraft; like that, too, it uses a lot of cloth hanging from the ceiling to denote...well, I’m not sure what it’s denoting. It’s pretty, and relatively meaningless, as far as I can tell.

Unlike its older sibling, its performances are scatter-shot and the overall conceit random and arbitrary. Some of the players are quite arresting and affecting; others seem to be pursuing a different agenda from the rest, and doing their own version of the play.

As I have noted elsewhere, the most critical role here is that of Leontes. We have to be able to believe his descent from affability to steepest paranoia in a very short time, and then his equally precipitous reversal to abject repentance a few minutes later. There are obviously various ways to achieve this almost bi-polar character arc, but none of them is reliable; Leontes here chose the jet-assisted launch into full-tilt paranoia almost immediately. Once one pins the needle on the volume meter, so to speak, though, there’s nowhere to go from there. From that point until the death of Mamillius (actual) and Hermione (reported), he’s operating at full steam, with a hyperventilating, screaming, gasping rant that makes those few minutes not merely emotionally taxing but drearily protracted. Perhaps that’s a point of realism: paranoids do get boring after a rather short time; still one hopes not to find that in a play. Leontes’ contrite state is more or less equally monotonous, though it’s less painful to listen to.

The loss there is the greater pity, because there are at least four roles that are carried off with real aplomb. Kemi-Bo Jacobs is radiant and august as the wronged Hermione; she wears her pain with a dignity that is quite affecting and goes a long way to make the (intrinsically rather implausible) plot arc seem at least remotely possible. Andrew French’s Polixenes is far more nuanced than Leontes, though he does not have to become quite as manic in the process. The two servant roles of Camillo and Paulina — great roles both, with moments of emotional resonance and devastation, appalled at what they are asked by their king to do — are more than amply played by Ben Captan and Amanda Hadingue, respectively. I find Paulina one of those emotional anchor points that holds the play together, when everyone else seems to be losing all contact with reality. Camillo is a close second on that score.

As with most recent RSC productions, this also randomly reassigns a number of roles across gender boundaries; I am not sure I see the point of the exercise, but it is more or less de rigueur these days, and in this case it doesn’t particularly trouble the story-telling. Having Autolycus arrive on a motorcycle, though, singing rhythm-and-blues or early rock versions of some of the songs, seems like yet another stunt designed to call attention to how clever the dramaturges are, without actually adding anything materially to the narrative.

This is worth seeing for the completist or the student of the occasionally striking stagecraft. As a view onto some of the parts other than Leontes, it’s also worth seeing. As a performance of the play as a whole, however, I’d give it a miss. Mostly it stands as a testimony to the increasing self-absorption and self-indulgence of the Royal Shakespeare Company, which likes nothing more than to show how clever and centrifugal it can be while still nominally blaming it all on Shakespeare. Almost any other version is preferable.

Buy The Winter’s Tale from Amazon.